


Moonbeams

by ellerean



Category: Free!
Genre: Couples Day, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellerean/pseuds/ellerean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin and Haru have completed the international circuit, owned a renowned swimming club, and committed their lives to each other in matrimony. But the nagging presence of something missing—or some<i>one</i>—is impossible to ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonbeams

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, rinharu week, for giving me a reason to finish this fic. (And also to everyone who listened to me whine about it.)

Everyone believed their lives were over come retirement. _What will you do now?_ the journalist had asked Rin, as Haru packed boxes at their Kyoto apartment. The whole thing was staged, of course; the photographer had asked Haru to stand by their “wall of victories,” the medals that were draped across nails in the living room wall. He’d explained what each of them were from: Pan Pacific. Japan Masters. The Olympics. Haru admired each of the medals, pausing for the flash of a camera, before carefully piling them into a cardboard box.

 _We’re going home_ , Rin had replied, and Haru looked up with a smile.

That, at least, had not been staged.

They’d taken over ownership of the Iwatobi Swim Club following the Rio Olympics, returning to Kyoto when it came time to train for the next. And they went through the same routine after the Tokyo games, and then Paris . . . and then, they packed up the apartment for good.

At thirty-one, they couldn’t complain about retirement. They taught the children at the swim club, and enjoyed domestic life at home. But even as Haru watched Rin willingly eat his mackerel, there was a nagging emptiness. Not due to Rin—he wasn’t unhappy with Rin, not at all—but there was an unnamed missing presence.

Haru had put a name to the emptiness months prior, but had denied it. He and Rin were uncles: Kazumi Tachibana was a feisty seven-year-old, the only child of their joined families. It hadn’t felt like seven years since he’d been born—in that time, Rin and Haru had visited eight different countries, competed in two Olympic games. They’d watched a generation of young swimmers graduate at the club, watched them on television at international meets.

Now, Haru tilted his head and chewed his fish, watching Rin poke around his rice bowl with his chopsticks. He hadn’t thought they looked any older than when they’d first begun their careers, but the years were more apparent when they’d look through the old magazines. Rin had a few strands of grey in his long hair, which he denied. They hadn’t gained weight—they still trained, despite retiring from the professional circuit—but Rin’s laugh lines were more pronounced, and Haru had discovered age spots on his own shoulders from the years of swimming under the blazing sun.

“What is it?” Rin asked, without looking up.

Haru quickly looked back down at his dinner, but it was too late. Rin had noticed him staring, mesmerized by the click of his chopsticks and the way his jaw moved as he chewed. Haru pushed a piece of mackerel into his mouth.

“Haru? Talk to me.” He uncrossed his legs to prod Haru’s ankle with his toe.

Haru prolonged the silence, waiting until he'd swallowed to reply. “Do you think about children?”

Rin paused in the brief recognition of his query. But the surprise was fleeting; Haru could read the way he pushed the question to the back of his mind, the denial over what he’d truly asked. Rin casually shrugged. “Sure. We see kids all the time.”

Haru frowned. “That’s not what I mean.”

Rin set down his chopsticks so slowly that they didn’t sound on the wooden tabletop. Haru mirrored the motion, meeting his eyes in the pause that followed. Rin’s eyes were wide open, his lips moving as he tried to speak. When the words finally spilled out, his voice cracked. “Haru . . . you want to have children?”

Haru reached across the table, stretching around the platters and bowls. Rin’s hands shook slightly, but not as much as Haru would’ve thought.

 _Children_. Seeing the young parents at the swim club, waiting in the bleachers for class to finish. Or sitting during meets, watching their children bounce around with nerves over their first real race. The children who rushed to their parents soaking wet, still wearing their swim caps, and the parents who opened their arms to accept their damp hugs without complaint.

Most of their young beginners from when they’d taken over were still in the club, now venturing into the middle school years. The seven- to eight-year-olds who’d clung to them in the past were training for their own professional careers, spread across Japan with letters of recommendation from Olympic gold medalists Rin and Haruka Matsuoka.

“I want to raise our own,” Haru replied.

It came to him all at once, how he forced down the bite of jealousy when children went home with their parents. How Rin and Haru would wait for the last child to leave the club at night before going home. They bought gifts for graduating third-years, and gifts for their nephew. They motivated children when they thought they’d failed. They were counselors to teenagers who’d known them longer than the friends they were having troubles with.

Rin practically vaulted to the other side of the table and his hug was violent, pulling so hard that Haru’s chest hurt with the collision. “You . . . You want to have kids with me?”

Haru trailed his fingertips down the back of Rin’s neck. “You’re my husband.”

“T-That’s not the point!”

Haru smiled as he kissed Rin’s temple, waiting for the inevitable tears, but Rin didn’t cry. His body shook but he was _laughing_ , clutching the back of Haru’s shirt.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Haru said, looking off to the side.

“I’m not,” he said, sitting up to take Haru’s face in his hands. “I’m not.” He kissed Haru without warning, clumsily, his teeth piercing Haru’s bottom lip. Haru backed up with a scowl and swiped at his lip—no blood, at least. “ _Yes_ , Haru. I think about it all the time. I want to start a family with you.”

* * *

 

Gou had to admit, the pool was kind of nice at night.

Makoto was home making dinner—the gods only knew what concoction he would whip up—and his brother had stolen Kazumi for some long-overdue male bonding. Gou felt slightly guilty over her temporary joy at solitude, but the guilt didn’t last long. She watched adult lap swim finish up, Rin bidding goodnight to the swimmers who disappeared into the locker rooms.

“Gou.”

She looked up and Haru sat beside her, smelling like dryer sheets. He’d apparently just come from laundering the piles upon piles of used towels.

“Haru-nii!” She linked their arms and kissed his cheek. He blushed, though he’d long since stopped being embarrassed over her affection. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He inclined his head, watching Rin as he climbed down from the lifeguard’s chair. He was lying, but even Gou couldn’t take her eyes off her brother’s perfectly-sculpted muscles. Rin waved, calling them down to poolside.

She hadn’t brought a swimsuit, but when they arrived Rin had already pulled on his tracksuit. Haru looked slightly disappointed as he went for the zipper of his track jacket, shoving his hands into his pockets instead. They sat around a small, glass-topped table in the corner of the room, which was usually reserved for interviews with parents or journalists.

Rin hadn’t zipped his jacket and his chest looked strange dry, stranger still that a fine layer of red fuzz was growing in. He slung an arm over the back of Haru’s chair and restlessly played with his jacket’s zipper with the other hand, running it up and down the single line of teeth. Haru, conversely, hardly moved at all; his steady gaze was unnerving.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, looking back and forth between them. It felt like she sat under a spotlight, an intervention as her brothers displayed all their nervous habits at once.

It was Rin who blurted it out first. “We want to have a baby.” Haru nodded so quickly that his hair flopped over his forehead.

Gou remembered the moment Makoto had expressed his desire for children. Not that she _hadn’t_ wanted them, but it had been so _soon_. But she’d watched her husband teach children for years, and he’d been so patient with them that she hated not having one of their own. He’d been thrilled when she’d quickly agreed, and she certainly wouldn’t complain about the _trying_ for a child, either . . . every night . . .

Haru’s voice gently broke her reverie. “Gou?”

Silent tears dripped down her cheeks and she was laughing, the swell of her heart spreading to her stomach and her limbs. She looked at them again: Rin, her blood, overexcitable and emotional; Haru, his opposite, quiet and calm. Passionate, dedicated, and in love.

“You’ll be _great_ fathers,” she said, wiping tears from her chin.

Rin and Haru glanced at each other. Haru nodded, a slight gesture that she would’ve missed if she hadn’t been staring right at him. Rin swallowed around an obvious lump in his throat, trying not to burst into tears himself. “Gou, we . . . if you don’t want to, we totally understand, but . . .”

She sat up straighter. “Spit it out, big brother.”

“We don’t want to adopt.” Haru was outwardly calm but she recognized a spark in his eyes, one typically reserved for bodies of water or her brother. Or both.

Gou understood before Rin started to explain. It was so _obvious_. They didn’t _have_ to adopt. She knew her answer even as he spoke, spewing words that sounded like he pulled them straight from an informational pamphlet.

“I’ll do it,” she said, cutting him off. Rin looked relieved that she’d interrupted the discussion of her reproductive cells. “I’ll carry it.”

“W-Wh—”

“Gou, that’s not—”

“Don’t be stupid!” She crossed her arms. “You won’t use a surrogate. I’ll carry my _own_ family.” The words echoed off the empty pool in the lull of their silence.

It’s said that when two people spend enough time together, they start to resemble each other. And in that moment, Gou understood it for the first time—Rin and Haru both sat hunched over the table, mouths hanging open, the wordless shock on their blank faces. She turned to Haru. “When can I get your sperm?”

Rin flushed a deeper red, nearly tipping back in his chair and flailing to sit upright. “D-Don’t talk about my husband’s sperm!”

“Oh, grow up!” Gou barked.

Haru hadn’t said anything, breathing so hard that it was visible through his jacket. Now, his voice was soft. “Are you sure?”

The only time she’d been more sure of anything was when she’d decided to have her own.

 

* * *

 

Haru had called Makoto right away, so he knew a Matsuoka baby was on the way—though Gou had made him promise _not_ to mention the surrogate. Kazumi was having a last-minute sleepover at Uncle Ren’s, so the moment the door closed Gou could fall into her husband’s arms without interruption.

Makoto’s steak dinner was overcooked, but mostly edible. He couldn’t stop talking through the meal, telling Gou every detail of his conversation with Haru as if she didn’t already know.

“And of course we’ll help as much as we can,” Makoto said.

“Of course,” she replied, still unable to reveal just how much.

He cleaned up while she took a long shower, trying not to overthink her decision. They went to bed early to make love, and Gou was conscious of the fact that she’d have to come off birth control again. She hated the way her body shifted back to its irregular cycle but that, too, wouldn’t be for long. Somehow, it was more terrifying the second time. At least with Kazumi, she’d been blissfully unaware.

She sat up afterward, which was the first sign. Makoto noticed right away, sitting up beside her, taking her hands beneath the blanket even before they spoke. The blanket only covered them from the waist down, and it still excited her how he’d stare at her naked chest.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, “and I want you to know it was my decision.”

His eyes widened slightly, but he nodded. “What is it? Is everything okay?”

Her hands were already warm in his, her palms sweating. But she wouldn’t let go, not for a second. “I’m going to carry the baby.”

Gou felt his slight tremble and she inched closer, closing the space between them. His eyes fell to her stomach, as if envisioning the unborn child.

“It’s for my brothers,” she added as an afterthought.

He released her hands to grip the blanket around them, closing his eyes as he forced his steady breathing. She watched him, her gaze sweeping from his sex-mussed hair down to the perfectly-sculpted muscles of his arms and chest. She would’ve been fine enough staring the rest of the night, but then he opened his eyes.

“All right,” he finally said, taking her hands again. “I’m really proud of you, Gou. I know this isn’t easy.” The blanket had slid off one of his legs, covering his groin but exposing one muscular thigh. “And”—he swallowed—“i-if you have to sleep with someone else . . . I’m glad it’s Haru.”

“W-Wha . . .” She smacked his leg. “I’m not having sex with Haru!”

“B-But—!”

“Oh, Makoto. You are hopeless!”

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t a complicated process, once they swam through the endless paperwork. Rin hovered over Haru’s and Gou’s shoulders as they filled out forms, contracts, and agreements. Legally, Gou would not be the mother. Legally the child would have no mother; the birth certificate would list only Rin and Haruka Matsuoka as parents. Rin’s hand shook as he signed his agreement, though Gou’s signature showed no trace of hesitation.

And then, Rin and Haru waited. The waiting room at the doctor’s office was expectedly sterile, and filled with mostly women. They were ogled but unapproached; their international fame wasn’t so far gone that they weren’t recognizable, but the women could also read the nerves and sweat associated with their sitting too close. Rin stared at a print of wildflowers on the wall, slowly breathing as if reminded himself to do so. Haru flipped through a magazine without reading it, and Rin wondered if he noticed it was a gossip tabloid. A woman across the room was not shy about taking a picture of them with her phone, pretending she was using the screen as a mirror to fix her hair.

“Haru.” Rin whispered, leaning closer, gripping their shared armrest. “We’re going to be parents.”

Haru covered Rin’s hand with his own, squeezing as he nodded.

Gou looked fine when she came out. Normal. Makoto looked worse; he was pale and carried a small carton of orange juice, the type usually offered when giving blood. “He almost passed out,” Gou explained. Makoto collapsed in a chair and sipped his juice from an absurdly small straw.

“How do you feel?” Rin asked, holding both her shoulders. Haru pointedly stared at her stomach.

Gou smiled. “I’m fine, big brother.” She then turned to Makoto, who’d crushed his empty juice carton and was staring at the floor between his knees. “Makoto! Get a grip! You know that’s where you stick your—”

He threw his arms over his head. “Stop it!”

Rin covered his ears. “I don’t wanna know!”

Haru pressed a hand to Gou’s flat abdomen. She smiled, lifting up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

 

* * *

 

Not a day passed that they didn’t visit or call the Tachibanas, waiting for outward signs and asking how she felt. It was like having three husbands, the constant fussing and staring as if her stomach would expand overnight. Gou claimed she wouldn’t even know right away if she were pregnant, but she knew—she’d felt the onset of queasiness, the lightheadedness when waking up. She fell into old rituals, keeping a water bottle and a box of crackers on the bedside table. She hung her maternity clothes in the forefront of closet, though wouldn’t need them for several months. She rested a hand on her stomach, waiting for the first signs of Haru’s child stirring within her.

No, not Haru’s—the Matsuokas.

 

* * *

 

“Haru!”

The level of Rin’s excitement was usually uncalled for, and something Haru had learned to interpret whether it was important or not. He was teaching a class when Rin hurried onto the pool deck, speed walking beneath the “no running” sign pinned to the wall.

Every little face in Haru’s class turned up to Rin-sensei, who was panting after obviously running through the locker room. Haru stood upright in the water, his chest and stomach cold in the sudden shock of the air.

“What is it?” His voice was too even, too steady in Haru’s silent panic.

Rin sat on the pool’s edge to slide into the shallow water and the kids scattered, anticipating their embrace. Haru glanced over Rin’s shoulder at his class, who stared and giggled.

“She’s showing,” Rin whispered, arms tight around Haru’s waist. “It’s happening.”

“I’m teaching,” Haru replied, but hugged him back.

 

* * *

 

Makoto built the nursery, converting their spare room from a home gym to one padded and baby-proof. He could be heard sawing and pounding nails while Haru cooked dinner; he’d come downstairs with streaks of paint across his forehead. Gou would sit at the table with Rin, who pressed an ear to her growing stomach despite how often she said he couldn’t hear anything. The baby wasn’t even kicking yet. They’d anticipated Kazumi’s confusion over the baby that wouldn’t be his sibling, but when Gou explained it would be his uncles’ he’d only nodded. “They’re both boys,” he said, “so Mommy’s having a baby for them.” Makoto didn’t want to think about when he’d learned the logistics, or whether he understood what he was saying.

There was less arguing over food, with Haru understanding the baby would need a balanced diet. The Tachibanas spent many nights at their kitchen table, too, as Haru expanded their meal options. Gou varied between ravenously hungry and unable to eat; Makoto would call ahead of time if there were certain foods or scents she couldn’t stomach that particular day.

They wouldn’t let her move around, especially when it became more difficult for her to lower down to the floor. Kazumi helped his father with the nursery, carrying lightweight lumber and handing him tools, as Haru cooked downstairs. Rin sat with Gou at the table, rubbing her belly and whispering to the child, hoping he or she was hungry because Daddy Haru was cooking up something special.

Rin and Haru didn’t want to know the gender, though Gou had found out right away. They wanted to keep everything neutral, from the green-and-yellow nursery to the gender-neutral onsies that were already stacked in its closet.

There was a crash from upstairs, followed by the sound of a six-foot man hitting the floor.

“Make sure he’s not hurting himself,” Haru called from the kitchen, and Rin ordered Gou to stay put—as if she could’ve kept up with her brother running upstairs.

Makoto had tripped over his toolbox, but Rin was too busy staring at the partially-built crib to tend to him. Kazumi couldn’t understand why Uncle Rin was crying when it was Daddy who hurt himself.

 

* * *

 

They took turns accompanying Gou to her appointments. Makoto wasn’t always present, especially if she went during the day, but Rin and Haru alternated watching the swim club and escorting her to the gynecologist. Gou and baby were doing just fine, the doctor always said, intentionally avoiding the use of the word “mother.” The tissue box in the office was often empty after Rin was there, especially once the sonogram began to display something human-like. Haru would put his face so close to the screen that Gou wondered if he could see it straight. “Is that a penis?” he asked, pointing to the baby’s arm.

“You’re so clueless, Haru-nii.” Gou giggled. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

Haru looked away, but the doctor still caught him glancing at the screen. “I don’t.”

 

* * *

 

The swim club members were on alert for Baby Matsuoka’s arrival, with notices posted up in the lockers and pool area that the club could be closed at a moment’s notice. Gou had her bag packed, and Rin and Haru kept a suitcase in the office with a change of clothes for themselves. But it was two a.m. when they received the call from Makoto, though could barely hear him over Gou screaming in the background.

“W-We have to go,” Makoto stammered, as a car door slammed. “Your mom’s here with Kazumi and—”

“Go!” Rin pushed Haru out of bed, though he was already stumbling out while pulling on his pants. “We’ll meet you there!”

It was still cold, though it was spring; Rin sat in the passenger’s seat because Haru didn’t trust him not to drive off the road. “I wish the sakura trees were in bloom,” Rin said, staring up and out the side window.

Haru reached over to take his hand, the other white-knuckled hand on the wheel. “But we can show them to our baby.” Rin gripped his hand hard, smiling to hold back the tears.

But he cried anyway when they burst into the hospital, seeing neither Tachibana anywhere in sight. But the nurse had been waiting for them, hurrying them back to the delivery room, not that they needed her guidance—the moment the double doors swung open to the maternity wing, Gou’s screaming lead the way.

“We’re here,” Rin said, as they hurried to her sides, bypassing a sweating and fidgeting Makoto. They each took one of her hands as her drug-induced gaze swept side to side, taking in both of them. “We’re here, little sister.” Haru pushed her sweat-damp bangs away from her forehead.

They didn’t get up for a moment, suffering through each of her hand-crushing contractions and the shouting over how much she hated them. Makoto assured them that she didn’t mean it when tears pooled in both Rin’s and Haru’s eyes.

“And you!” she cried, struggling to point at him with the hand Haru held. “If you pass out this time, I’m never having sex with you again!”

“Haru,” Rin called over in a fake whisper. “How do we get him to pass out?” Gou managed to laugh between contractions.

Gou permitted Haru to kiss her forehead. It was strange to witness his affection, the kisses almost mechanical in their response to her cries. Rin would whisper to her that she was all right—even if she barked back that she didn’t need his comforting—but it was Haru’s kisses that brought the screaming down a notch, that soothed even Makoto as he sat shaking at Haru’s side.

They had only one name selected. Sex didn’t matter, not when no one in their family had names that matched their gender. But Rin still cried when the doctor announced the baby girl’s arrival, laughing at the irony and the strange, wonderful news of their parenthood. He hadn’t noticed when Haru had moved to his side of the bed, but felt the kisses that washed the tears from his cheeks.

Gou held her first but the men crowded around, bombarding the infant with their large, close faces. She’d wailed in the first seconds of her life—“Definitely a Matsuoka,” Haru had said—but now cuddled quietly to her surrogate mother.

“Definitely a Nanase,” Rin said, as he wiggled her tiny fingers. Makoto laughed at Rin’s surprise when the girl clamped a fist around his finger.

“Are you telling me her name now,” Gou said, “after I carried your child for nine months?”

Haru didn’t even look up from their daughter’s pink, scrunched face when he spoke. “Will she do this her entire life?”

Rin shrugged. “Probably.” Gou lifted the infant and Rin was ready, creating a cradle of his arms before she was even lying within them. She was smaller than he’d imagined, just fitting between his elbow and the cup of his palm. He leaned over, face poised over her forehead, the tears dripping onto her head before the kiss could.

“Toraichi,” Haru replied, resting his chin on Rin’s shoulder to watch her.

 

* * *

 

Toraichi was a quiet girl, so much that Rin and Haru would check on her in the middle of the night even when she didn’t cry. They’d been warned of sleepless nights but hadn’t been told how often they’d forego sleep just to watch, standing over her crib with their arms around each other.

Her hair lay dark and thick over her head, but not nearly enough to put into clips despite Rin’s efforts. They caught her eyes in brief glimpses during her waking hours, but when she finally opened them wide they were a deep, fiery red.

And the affection came pouring in, from friends both old and new. They kept their front door open during the day so visitors could stroll in, admiring Tora-chan and showering her with gifts and kisses. She bounced on Haru’s knee as Rin opened countless presents, holding the tiny dresses up to his chest for her approval. She mostly ignored the fashion show, opting to chew on one penguin slipper no matter how often Haru eased it from her mouth. Parents of their swim students offered practical gifts—diapers and bibs and baby wipes—and it didn’t take long for them to learn just how much of these items they would go through.

Kazumi Tachibana had a cousin, one that Uncle Rin threatened he would protect when she was older. “Protect her from what?” he asked, as Haru demonstrated the right way to hold a baby.

“From people like Uncle Rin,” Haru replied, and waited until Kazumi stopped laughing to place Cousin Toraichi in his waiting arms.

Her first bath was a serious matter, Rin and Haru caging her in the tub between their swimsuit-clad legs. They’d only filled the tub to her thighs and she smacked the water curiously, pulling a hand from the water and laughing to discover it was wet. She didn’t cry when Haru washed her hair—which they’d been told to expect—but only stared up at Rin wide-eyed with a headful of suds. Rin bumped the nose of the dolphin bath toy to her nose, and she snatched it from his hand to cuddle it to her pudgy body.

“She’s a swimmer,” Haru said, his eyes shining.

Rin nudged his butt with a toe. “That doesn’t prove anything!”

And when the sakura trees bloomed Daddy Haru strapped her to his chest, taking a walk through town so Daddy Rin could show her the sights. She stared up at the canopy of pink, the petals getting caught in her black hair and tickling her face. Haru barely glanced at the trees; he stared down at their daughter, who squealed along to Rin’s overexcitable voice even if she didn’t understand a word of it.

“And this is where your daddies won their first relay together,” he said, standing before the swim club. When they smiled at each other, Toraichi smacked both hands to Haru’s chest in glee.

 

* * *

 

If Rin or Haru had asked, Gou would say it was easy to separate herself as the birth mother. But she knew Makoto saw it, how she doted on her niece and pampered her more than a mere aunt would.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she’d reply, when Makoto asked about it. “Tora-chan is their little girl. It’s my job to spoil her.”

Perhaps it was easier that she took after Haru more, and that she still viewed her own features as those of her parents. Toraichi had her grandfather’s eyes, the same as Gou’s mother had said about her. The mouth was Haru’s, the nose some distant Matsuoka who resembled Rin. He hadn’t outwardly mentioned it but he, too, had been searching for his identifying factors. He had a habit of bopping her nose, which was the only evidence Gou needed to prove he’d found it, too.

She tried not to be overbearing around the baby, though her brothers allowed her free reign. She was glad to take Tora-chan off their hands when they were all together, noticing the dark shadows beneath their eyes and the way Rin would drop the diaper bag like it held solid concrete.

“How’s fatherhood?” she asked, as the baby grabbed at her shirt collar.

Rin yawned, as if on cue, as Haru replied, “It’s amazing.”

They’d never acknowledged Mother’s Day for her before, but showed up that year bearing roses. She eyed them skeptically—she’d already received flowers from Makoto and Kazumi—but Haru pushed them into her arms. She didn’t fail to notice how he’d cradled them like one would hold a child.

Rin stood close enough that Toraichi tried to grab at Gou’s hair from her carrier, but he shushed her and stepped back before her tiny fist successfully wrapped around the ponytail.

“Thank you,” Haru said, still pressing the roses into her arms as if she’d try to give them back.

“You . . . You don’t have to thank me, Haru-nii.”

“Then I will.” Rin cradled his daughter’s head as he leaned forward, lightly kissing Gou on the forehead. Toraichi squealed and giggled as she grabbed for Aunt Gou’s dangling hair again.

* * *

 

When Haru woke in the middle of the night it was Rin’s presence that helped him sleep again, cuddling closer to feel his steady breathing. But the bed was empty when Haru blinked awake at two thirty, Rin’s indent in the mattress still warm. He cocked his head for the now-familiar sound of infant tears, but there was nothing. The house silent, but he reluctantly pulled himself from the comfort of the bed to find his husband.

He was unsurprised to find him in the nursery, standing over the crib. Rin’s back was to the door, and though the room was dark he could see the nose of a stuffed shark he hugged to his bare chest. A strip of moonlight slipped through the blackout curtains, where they hadn’t closed them all the way, illuminating the foot of the crib.

Haru was quiet but Rin wasn’t startled when he approached, a hand on his back and a kiss to his cheek. Toraichi slept soundly, her orca blanket tucked in tight around her. The small mattress was still too big for her frame.

“It must look like the entire world,” Rin whispered, as if reading Haru’s thoughts.

Haru moved to wrap both arms around him, hugging his side, and rested his cheek on Rin’s shoulder. “I’m so happy,” he said.

Rin bopped Haru’s nose with the plush shark. Toraichi fidgeted and they watched, transfixed, but she settled down again without waking. “Do you think she dreams?” Rin asked.

Her butterfly plush was out of reach and Haru reached into the crib to gently push it closer. She shifted to rest her back against one soft wing. Haru smiled. “If she’s anything like you.”

Rin set the plush shark at the foot of the crib, far from her reach, and wrapped an arm around Haru’s shoulders. Their days had been filled with entertaining, with dirty diapers and pureed food, their nights with the silently anxieties of her not sleeping and sleeping too much. Rin rubbed between his shoulder blades, Haru’s skin still warm from the blanket, and kissed his lips for what felt like the first time since her arrival. They kept one ear on the silent crib as they breathed life into each other, as their hands slowly wandered the other’s body.

Toraichi wailed without warning, shrill and ear-splitting.

“Guess she doesn’t like that,” Rin said, as Haru reached into the crib to gather her up. “It’s my turn, if you want,” he added, but Haru shook his head.

He stayed anyway, rubbing her back as Haru bounced her on his shoulder. Rin still stood in that single moonbeam, the light refracting off his chest before spilling onto the green carpet. Haru met his eyes when Toraichi quieted but he didn’t yet put her down, waiting until he was absolutely certain she’d fallen asleep again.

Rin lightly brushed his lips over their daughter’s head before kissing his husband again. Even when she was settled back into the crib, cuddled beside the butterfly plush, they stayed. Haru kissed him softly, silently, so she wouldn’t wake again.

“Wanna go back to bed?” Rin whispered, wrapping both arms around him.

Haru looked down at their sleeping child and she yawned, curling her tiny hand around the edge of the blanket. He kissed Rin’s jaw, pressing deeper into his embrace. “Not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Here](http://letsswimtogethernanase.tumblr.com/post/103284920033) on tumblr.


End file.
